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The next steps were easy, but each one called for a decision to be made. I realized that it was the need to make more choices that was holding back my progress.

I was putting a book up on iBooks. They wanted key words. A decision. They wanted a sample chapter. A decision. They wanted…you get the picture. The steps were easy but each one needed a decision on my part.

I looked around to see where else in my life decision-making was slowing me down – or stopping me altogether.

Choose one important thing and do it

My life changed when I read a suggestion that we simply pick one important thing to accomplish each day and do it. What a difference that made! One thing. One important thing. Just one.

So if I choose to get the book cover in iBooks Author as my one important thing that meant I could look at an instruction video, again, and make my decision. Then I could read the section on uploading in iProducer. And make uploading the book the most important thing I did the next day. Each day moves me further along. And each day I have only one important thing to accomplish.

I can do that. And so can you!

Group the type of tasks

It helps to group types of tasks together. I record four videos at a time because the light is set up, my hair is combed, etc.

I write posts every day, but once a month I go through them and pull out the ones that seem to have value. Then I work on them every other day for at least three days, so I can return to them with a beginner’s mind. Then I run them through www.grammarly.com and send them to my editor. When they come back I spend a focused period of time choosing photos for all of them and bingo – I have a month’s worth of posts ready.

All because I batched my actions.

Clear space to do the work

If we’re going to focus on one thing, we have to make a decision on what we’ll momentarily put aside in order to make that happen.

If my one important thing to do this week is to edit a batch of posts, then I probably won’t record my vLog.

If my weekly newsletter is due each Sunday, I have to work on it several times during the week. I find myself inspired to write pieces of it, but on Thursday I set aside time to edit and polish it and send it to be proofed.

Choose. Pick one step, one project and begin. You can always stop. You can always expand. Just make a choice and begin.

Exploration and expanding choice

The more you go exploring, the broader your choices become.

When I made my first book covers, it was based on what I knew how to do at the time. But I kept experimenting and exploring different programs and allowing what I learned to become absorbed.

And I got better.

And better.

The more you learn, the broader your choices become.

Use visioning to explore

If I were faced with a decision that required me to place myself in a new position – or not – I’d use my imagination to explore my options. I’d examine my emotions and feeling and state of happiness in the new opportunity compared with my present circumstances, and let those feeling guide my choices.

For instance, as I study shamanism I’ve become clear that I do not want to develop a big practice for individual clients. But I do want to help change the world. I’ve found a form of shamanistic participation that fits my intentions and my circumstances. Now I get to explore exactly how I’m going to live that and share that. I simply let it unfold.

Sometimes one choice is as good as another

It doesn’t really matter what form my shamanic practice takes as long as I continue to explore and expand my own understanding and find expressive ways to share what I learn with the world.

Another example is that it doesn’t matter if I stir fry my vegetables or steam them. As long as I make the healthy choice of eating vegetables.

Some decisions are important. Others not so much.

Tomorrow is good too

If something blocks our way, move it aside for the moment. For instance, I was editing a batch of posts. I make my selections from all I’ve written lately, put them in one document and start working.

I came to one that needed a lot of work. I moved it to the bottom of the document I’m working in because I’ll feel better moving through the posts that are coming together well. I can put the decision of what to do about that post that needs work until all the rest are ready. I can make it the first thing I do tomorrow. It’ll be one decision and I’ll feel good about what I’ve already accomplished – the posts that are ready to go for proofing.

Allow yourself flexibility in your schedule and your choices in order to do your best work.

Make one decision at a time

Make a choice and go exploring. If that choice doesn’t feel right, go back to base camp and begin again in a different direction. If, on the other hand, you come to an enticing side trip, feel free to take that too.

Life is a wonderful adventure full both of choices and of surprises. Enjoy the journey.

I put off a final step of a project for ten days simply because it felt like a barrier I had to push through. And, of course, the longer I waited, the bigger the barrier seemed. What do you do when you seem to have hit a barrier? How do you overcome it? How do you work around it?

Barriers often begin small

My perceived barrier was a small technical step I needed to figure out in order to set up a wonderful display of my books on my website along with the way to obtain them. I worked really, really hard for three days getting to this point. Then there was one small step I needed to understand and do and it would be finished. Furthermore, it would then be set up and ready to receive more books.

That one step felt like a major challenge and stopped me in my tracks.

Some barriers are about making a decision

I was given an alternate solution by tech support. One step. One solution. And yet I put off for days even trying to understand that one step. It was because I had to make a decision. I had to figure out one more choice. Are some of your barriers simply about decisions?

I knew that it would probably take me 20 minutes to make this happen — well, maybe an hour — but the reward and relief would be enormous.

What if a barrier became an opportunity?

Once I master this one small step, it’ll be easy to put up the other small books that I seem to be completing at a rather rapid pace — probably becomes it’s more fun to create than to set up the back end of a website. So I have chosen to do what’s easy and pleasurable over what feels like a challenge, a place to push through, a barrier.

I wonder where else I’m doing that in my life?

Where are your stuck places?

I live alone so I can very much do what I want to do — or not do. I make rewarding choices like writing or meditating over mundane things like cleaning and cooking.

But there needs to be balance. I must push myself to walk more, to stretch more often, to even sit and look outside the window to connect with nature.

Once you identify your stuck places, figure out how to get yourself un-stuck

Don’t take the easy way

How hard would it be to walk five more minutes each day? Could I put on some great music and cook for an hour in order to have several special meals for the week? What if I tidy and clean some small area before I do something I regularly do — like watch the news. I bet I could even tidy up during the commercials.

Slip in some discipline

My mother made a point of sharing this story of my grandmother. Of all the daily chores she had, what she disliked the most was cleaning the coal oil lamp chimneys. So she did those first and freed up her day from the dread of doing them.

Smart lady. And smart mother to tell me that story.

Pick a “push through” time

Figure out a time of day when you have the energy to push through another step of the perceived barrier you have before you. If my barrier is physical, my push through time every day will be at 4 p.m., when I go for a walk. I’ll add more movement during that time.

As I reserve the beginning of my work day for writing and creating, early afternoon will be my push through time for mental barriers. It feels good to label it “push through” time.

Look at the reward for your effort

I will love having my books up on my site. I will feel proud to have them up on Amazon (another process I put off). Most of all I will love the feeling of relief and release and completion of the book project.

Just do it

Whatever you’ve been putting off, just do it. Set your timer if you want to — put it to 20 minutes, and see what you can do in that length of time. When the timer goes off, see how close you are to success. Acknowledge how far you’ve come and set the timer for another chunk of time.

Barriers are only opportunities to grow

What will you learn if you move through this barrier? What will it feel like on the other side? Is there another path you should take in order to get around this perceived blockage? What can you modify?

What is the lesson you need to learn in order to move forward?

Every opportunity has a gift. And barriers are opportunities. Look for the gift. For me, once I figure out this one small step, I can share my books in a lot of places. Look for the gift. Look for the reward.

The most prime space in my kitchen held things I didn’t use very often. That’s a poor use of prime real estate of space. When I rearranged things and used that space for items I used more often, I was more efficient and it was easier to get things done.

I wondered where else in my life I was misusing prime time and prime space.

What is your prime time?

When an idea starts to emerge, I sit down at my computer to capture it. No email, no stopping. I just create. I create other times of the day, but “first thing” time is prime time for me. I take advantage of it.

My week has some times that feel more productive than others. Mondays are always full of resolve. By Thursdays some of my projects are approached less enthusiastically.

When we know our own rhythm, our own prime time, we can schedule our work accordingly.

What is your prime space?

My desk is prime space. When I keep it clear and uncluttered I feel more in control and more focused. My computer desk has a shelf that is at eye level. What I put there is meant to be inspiring and motivating.

I have a little stone garden scene with a Buddha statue to remind me to pause and focus inward. I also have an etching of an old manual typewriter that’s been in a prime viewing place for 50 years. It’s the celebration of my love of writing.

There’s prime space in the table by the chairs I sit in to read. There’s prime space in the narrow bookshelf that holds my meditation items.

What’s your prime space and what do you have in it?

What does “prime” mean to you?

To me, prime can be two things – the most relevant and the most used. Most relevant is the development of my inner awareness. That makes “prime” my crystals, my meditation chair, and the books I read for my personal growth.

The most used, of course is my computer and the area around it where I spend most of my time.

Most used, handiest, most relevant? Central, foremost, most important? What’s important in your life? What’s important in your work?

How do you define “prime” for yourself?

What is your primary focus?

It helps to know the things that are most important to you. It may be a person or a group of people; it may be your work or just an aspect of your work. It may be the joy of learning, or the serenity of inner work.

Look for the subtle things that are important to you and give them some primary focus. Give them more time and more space.

This year, the primary focus for my outer work is to help more people find the Deeper Song Community. The primary focus for my inner work is to become more mindful and to explore more deeply into my inner life

When you know your primary focus, you can give it more time and space.

I keep doing stuff I’ve already done and that’s not what I want to do any more. I want to go exploring. I want new adventures. I don’t want to repeat stuff I already know how to do.

What do you no longer want to do?

I’ve never been one to repeat things. I’m not drawn to repeating the basics. I want to invent, create and fly on. That means there are certain things I no longer want to do. And yet, I keep gravitating back to them because they are familiar and perhaps even comfortable. But they are also boring and non-challenging. I get to look at that.

Comfortable and easy do not expand you

In order to grow me as a person, I have to keep exploring and experimenting and questioning. I have found what I want to learn, I want to deepen my spiritual inquiry. However, I keep reverting to my ability to make information products. To do that I have to teach some basics – basics I already know how to do. That’s my dilemma. I don’t want to repeat the basics, I want to fly!

Do what will grow you

It finally occurred to me that if I go exploring and share what I figure out, you will benefit too. You will take wisps and chunks of what i write about and do something with them in your own life. That would be wonderful. That would give meaning to my work . That allows me to give myself permission to not make courses or spend time trying to promote and sell them. That gives me permission to not even bother with ebooks. It sort of leaves me with posts that either get read or don’t. But the posts will have done their work for me. I will have changed myself. I will have explored the idea. I will have figured out how to apply the concept to my life. That will show up in other places in my life. And eventually come to you.

Who do you want to help?

I’ve always wanted to make a difference in the lives of the people who are already flying – who are contributing to their world, so that whatever I inspire them to do will affect many others. I’m no longer teaching ground school, I’m giving flying lessons! That sure works for me.

Who has gone before you?

I’m not on this journey alone and yet I am. I’m not smoothing a path, I’m blazing a trail. Yes, there are footsteps ahead of me and winding paths and signposts to guide me because I’m exploring spiritual awakening, whatever that means to me. But there are many choices and I have to find the paths the inspire and motivate and move me in a direction that resonates with my unique self. I’ll show you that path and where it takes me. Then you have to decide for yourself what path you want to follow. You have to go exploring and choose your own path.

I can’t go exploring if I stay in base camp

I have the tools I need for my journey. I write. I know how to make most forms of information products. I can draw a map in many languages. If I want to. But first I have to immerse myself in my journey. I have to feel deeply what I need to understand next in order to live a more thoughtful life. I have to embrace and explore them. I figure thing out by writing posts like this one in which I both explore the idea and then figure out how to apply it. The results of my trying the concept on for size ends up in another post.

So I don’t have to do what I don’t want to do

Staying in my comfort zone will slow me down. Getting bogged down in what I already know will keep me from growing And I’m pretty certain this next cycle of my life is about uncovering and explaining some pretty subtle ideas that have the potential to change a few lives.